Nato lies to stoke a new war

THE BOURGEOIS lie machine has once more gone into full swing to try to mobilise public opinion in support of imperialist intervention in Syria.

Page after page in the ruling class press is plastered with the crocodile tears of imperialist politicians and the hypocritical sermons of the “human rights” gang while images of the carnage at Houla have been splashed across the media to demonise the Syrian army and paint Syrian President Bashar al Assad as a tyrant in the same league as Nero or Ivan the Terrible.

The BBC even illustrated its initial report of the Houla massacre with a harrowing photo of rows and rows of body bags allegedly taken by the Syrian opposition and “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting funeral”. It was hurriedly dropped when it was pointed out, by the photographer who took it, that it was taken in March 2003 in Iraq!

Nothing is said about the fact that the Syrian government has condemned the massacre and laid the blame on the terror gangs that are armed and funded by the imperialists and their Turkish and feudal Arab lackeys. Nothing is said about the fact that the sources used by the imperialist media are the very same forces that are waging a terror campaign to overthrow the Syrian government.

Nor can the imperialist media explain why the Syrian army would commit mass murder and then withdraw to let the rebels return to take photos and make propaganda films about them to splash across the internet.

The Russians have a large diplomatic and media presence in Syria, unlike those of the Nato powers who withdrew their envoys last year in anticipation of the “United Nations” intervention that was vetoed twice by Russia and China. With many eyes and ears on the ground the Russians have therefore taken a more balanced view.

The Kremlin apportions blame on both sides for the sectarian killings and the Russian government made it clear to Foreign Minister William Hague in Moscow that the best way to end the violence was the full implementation of the UN’s own “Annan plan” that has been readily endorsed by the Assad government.

That government has been bolstered by the recent parliamentary elections under the new constitution. The Arab Socialist Renaissance Party (Baath) and its allies won an even larger majority in parliament than it had in previous elections under the old popular front government.

The National Unity List, which is led by the Baath and a number of other parties including Syria’s two communist movements, now holds 60 per cent of the seats in the 250-strong People’s Assembly, 10 per cent up on what the old Baathist-led National Progressive Front held in the past.

Some leaders of the constitutional opposition, including Qadri Jamil of the Popular Front for Liberation and Change, have been returned to parliament together with a number of independents.

All are opposed to the sectarian violence of the Muslim Brotherhood and the supporters of Al Qaeda that are less than covertly backed by the Nato powers who want to replace the Assad government with a puppet regime that will bend the knee to US-led imperialism.

Anglo-American imperialism’s efforts to use the UN as an instrument for aggression have been blocked, for the moment, by Russia and China. But the drive for regime change by other methods continues. We stand with all the genuine forces in the anti-war movement opposed to any intervention in Syria. Communists must defend the right of the government and people of Syria to determine their own future without outside interference.